So would doing the experiment that Athanasius performed and reported have been harder than asking the OPed question? More typing would certainly have been involved, but the potential return for the extra effort might have been very worthwhile, as an answer gained by your own efforts might have been more enlightening, and the answer to one question might have led to other questions and to a yet deeper understanding of mechanisms, possibilities, difficulties. The path of direct experience would have been more work, but perhaps much more profitable; it's possible the original question was the harder road after all.